Yes we have. The parameter works as defined, BUT the problem is that the ec2 treats userdata as an opaque data type - it passes it along as is, with no concrete representation of what it really is - that is left to the consuming app process on the instance. The command line nature of the CLI requires this encoding, but then the receiving process is now obligated to decode it. And Chef does not. Nor does CloudINIT.net. You can confirm this by checking the instance meta data at